21. Cane

The door slammed after Hart, deafening them all. The sound of Hart's car followed, and Hart was gone before any of them could react. Before anyone could stop him. They stood frozen in place, staring after him in disbelief.

All of the anger Cane felt, the betrayal and the hurt, took a back seat to the fact that Hart had just snapped right before his eyes. He'd looked wild to Cane, and not the kind of wild he always knew how to bring out in Hart. The primal, sensual wild that drove them both insane.

This was something else completely.

Hart had disappeared right before their eyes and turned into a vicious, argumentative, rude, and dismissive person who gave no thought to hurting everyone's feelings. It wasn't him. And as much as they all knew he'd been spiraling for days at that point, the culmination was something none of them had seen coming.

Cane was worried, he realized. The dread inside him that now felt like a permanent fixture turned from rage to anxiety over where Hart had gone.

They had to go find him. They had to bring him back.

He could see the looks on the others' faces, the hurt crumbling them all to pieces. Cane might have had his issues with the cursebreaker team, but he knew Hart saw them as family and he knew what he meant to them. He could see the ruin of his absence already. They looked lost, confused and out of sorts.

He had no clue what to say to them. Comforting someone was not in his skill set, and with the way he was feeling himself, he thought he'd only make things worse.

Because not a single productive thought was in his damn head. He wanted to go scorched earth to find Hart. Any suggestion he had involved unspeakable acts he was willing to commit just to bring him back.

Black broke first, shaking Fix out of his stupor when he slammed into him as he ran for his car keys.

"I'm going after him!" he yelled, impulsive and reckless and without a smidge of a plan in mind.

"Black!" Fix called after him, but Black wouldn't listen to reason. Cane wanted to follow. Black seemed to have the right idea.

He had no car, so going with Black might work for the best. He could feel himself stepping forward, but Black was out the door in two blinks of an eye.

The second slam of the door brought Ash back to life, and he ran a hand over his short hair, guilt painted all over his face. "What the fuck was that?" he asked Fix, pointing to the door.

Fix slumped onto one of the kitchen stools, looking broken and tired, like he was the one to blame for everything that had happened. Like the cracks in the frame of their family portrait were his fault and his fault alone.

He shook his head at Ash, and Cane wasn't sure whether it was in response to his question or disapproval of the way Ash had handled the situation.

"You think that was my fault?" Ash clearly took it as the latter.

Cane's fucked-up mind wanted to agree with the fucking cursebreaker, because if he was at fault…it meant Cane wasn't.

"No, Ash," Fix said tiredly.

"No, you clearly do, Fix," Ash said, his face growing red. "So why don't you just say it out loud?"

"I didn't say that," Fix said, drawing himself up as Ash's anger turned to him now that Hart was gone.

"You think it," Ash said.

Cane felt his headache lurch into his forehead, threatening to make his eyeballs explode.

"Enough!" Cane said, stopping further arguments. "This isn't helping."

"You're not helping," Ash responded, pointing at Cane. "In fact, this is all your doing."

"Ash," Fix said again.

Ash spun on his heel. "He's lost his mind, Fix. I'm not imagining that. Hart's fucking gone off the deep end. He's late for shit, he's not doing his job, he's keeping secrets, and you've seen the way he fucking looks."

"Ash!" Fix said, louder this time.

"Yesterday was a day of…something. I'm fucking sure of it, because every day is." Ash kept ranting. "And we didn't get stickers or a fucking banner, or even him acknowledging it." He looked at Cane and his eyes went darker. "He's fucking sleeping with—"

"HE'S CURSED!" Fix said loudly, stopping Ash's tirade and making Cane's stomach turn.

"Excuse me, what?" Ash asked, and Fix ran a tired hand over his face.

"Hart is cursed," he repeated.

Ash frowned. "He can't be. He's a cursebreaker. It's literally not…"

"What?" Cane asked into the silence when Ash trailed off. "It's not what?"

"Possible," Ash said. "I told you before. Cursebreakers don't get cursed. That goes against our, like, DNA or some shit. We can't actually BE cursed."

"I thought that was just you being a smug jackass," Cane said.

"No." Ash shook his head. "Legit can't be cursed."

"But you think Hart is?" Cane directed his question at Fix.

Fix grimaced, sighing deeply before throwing his hands in the air.

"Everything about this curse is strange. It's not how curses behave, at all. Hart had a theory that your curse was moving. Passing from person to person to anyone connected closely to you," Fix explained. "I didn't think about it because one, he's a cursebreaker, and two, he was so close to you I figured it just couldn't be it. You were the only person he wasn't acting negatively toward. It wasn't until you said he hadn't told you about Arianna that I knew this is another way this curse is acting contrary to everything we know about curses."

"He…" Cane's mind spun. Guilt started gnawing at his bones. It was one thing to be responsible for his business failing, but it was something completely different to be the cause of Hart's downfall. To be openly told he was. "That's not…"

"You know it is. Think about it. Who is that person we've been living with these past few days? Do you even know them? Really?" Fix asked, looking between Ash and Cane and waiting for the words to land.

Cane swallowed, the horror of it worse than anything he'd ever felt before. "I cursed him."

"You didn't cast the curse," Fix hurried to say. "And, Ash, you didn't make Hart behave the way he did. But we do need to figure out who did. And we need to figure out how."

"Finding the caster won't help break the curse. Curses shouldn't work on cursebreakers, so who the fuck knows what this one will do to Hart," Ash said, sounding anxious instead of cocky and loud like usual. "We need a cursebreaker."

"Who needs to understand what they're breaking. You're right, we have no idea how this curse is going to interact with Hart, and trying to break an unknown curse is dangerous, period. You know that better than anyone," Fix said. "We can't just brute force this one and metaphorically burn the whole thing to the ground, not when Hart is the one that will be left with the consequences."

"We don't fucking know who cursed me though," Cane said.

"We have a clue," Fix said. "It's more than what we had before, and a pointer in the right direction. Arianna Layton."

"That name means nothing to me." Cane wished he could somehow pull the knowledge of who this person was out of his ass just to get Hart back. He'd do anything.

"Nothing at all? Not even a variation of it?" Fix asked intently. "Ari? Anna?"

Cane shook his head, frustration making him want to tear his own hair out. He began to pace the length of the kitchen. He never forgot a name. Never forgave a person for crossing him. They were indelibly inked into his DNA. The worst ones carried the scars to go along with them. He ran a hand over his stomach.

"Okay, while you're looking for this chick, I'll call for reinforcements. Who do we want?" Ash asked, all business.

"Arcstead is closest to us," Fix said slowly. He sighed, running a hand over his face. "And Damir already knows some of the story."

"Yeah, I was afraid you'd say that." Ash took a few tentative steps toward the door, shoulders slumped.

"Warn Wren first," Fix called after Ash, who stopped in the doorway to the kitchen. "He's in his room, I think. I can hear him inside, but he doesn't want to be seen."

Ash nodded with a solemn expression before disappearing out the door.

Cane closed his eyes, tugging at the piercing in his lip roughly as he tried to search his brain for anything that sounded familiar about the person they'd mentioned.

Arianna Layton.

Arianna Layton.

There had only been one woman in his life who had really fucked him over, and her name sure as hell wasn't Arianna Layton. No. His demon was called Sarah Whitlock. The one who had changed the trajectory of his life forever, and done it multiple times.

She'd nearly killed him, leaving him for dead before he'd gotten picked up by the police. Like she couldn't decide which one she wanted more and had left it to fate. He'd spent years in prison learning the lesson she'd given him. Her mocking laugh ringing in his ears.

He'd taught her a lesson of her own as soon as he'd gotten out.

He hadn't risked leaving her like she had him. She was six feet under, her last words still echoing in his mind.

"Please…Cane…you can't take them from me."

Cane had assumed she had meant the businesses they'd built together, but now he paused. How much did he know about Sarah? He'd known the determined girl who had found her way under his skin. He'd known the ruthless, business-savvy, adaptable, and unpredictable Sarah. Known her enough to be able to see her moves before she made them.

Until she'd blindsided him.

What did he really know about her outside of what she had allowed him to see?

Nothing.

He'd never met any of her friends. She'd claimed she had no family, and the business partners she'd worked with she'd kept at a safe distance unless Cane was needed to do a job with them. She'd used separate phones, given them fake addresses, and never allowed anyone inside her home. She'd said it was for their protection.

She'd used all of that to make Cane feel special to her. Because he was allowed in her inner circle. He was the one she'd trusted. The one she kept close. It had been the two of them against the world. Naive, teenage him had thought it would be like that forever.

"Cane?" Fix asked, breaking him out of his thoughts, and he snapped.

"You need to ring up your PUMA lapdog and ask him to do some digging," Cane said.

Fix frowned. "I can't just ask them for information without any reason. That's not how this works."

"Do you want to help Hart or not?"

Fix opened and closed his mouth several times before shaking his head without a word. He pulled out his phone and called Cyrus, putting it on speakerphone and placing it between the two of them on the counter.

"Yeah?" Cyrus answered, sounding distracted.

"I need information on Sarah Whitlock," Cane said, not bothering with small talk or too much intro.

"Cane?" Cyrus asked, more than alert now. "What the fuck are you doing with a cursebreaker's phone?"

"I called you," Fix said, and Cane wondered how he managed to sound placating when his world was falling to pieces around him and his face clearly showed it. "It's to do with a case."

"Just do your fucking job!" Cane growled.

"I am currently, which doesn't include taking orders from you," Cyrus fired back. "Fix, this is highly—"

"Hart is cursed and we think it's to do with that list we sent you," Fix cut him off. "We need the information because we think it'll help us break the curse."

"Cursebreakers can't be cursed," Cyrus retorted, and Fix sighed, shaking his head.

"We thought so too," he said. "But here we are."

Cyrus swore loudly. "You don't like to do things the easy way, do you? Figures I'd have the most fucking dysfunctional cursebreaker team operating in my city."

It sounded like he was moving, the rising and falling sounds of voices indicating he was passing people by.

"Pull up anything you can about Sarah Whitlock," Cyrus said to someone unknown, before speaking to them again. "Anything in particular?"

Fix raised an eyebrow at Cane and Cane shook his head, not really sure where they could start.

"Anything you can find," Fix said finally, and they settled in for a wait while the sound of a keyboard clicking filled the silence.

Cane tapped his fingers on the countertop, half ready to crawl into the phone and shake the information he needed out of whoever was on the other side with Cyrus.

"Okay," Cyrus said after an eternity.

"Fucking finally," Cane said.

"I can cut this call and not give you anything," Cyrus bit back, and Fix shook his head at Cane before taking over again.

"That won't be necessary," Fix said. "We're grateful you're doing this for Hart. What did you find?"

Cane scowled, but it seemed like the saying about catching more flies with honey was true. For a split second his mind reminded him that that was something Hart would say, and the anger and anxiety came back full force.

"I'll start with the most interesting fact first," Cyrus said. "Sarah Whitlock didn't exist until twenty years ago."

"What the fuck?" Cane asked, and Fix's expression mirrored his.

"The first records of her that we managed to dig up are from the age of seventeen," Cyrus continued. "Ran away from a foster home she was in and foster parents reported her missing. She was gone until she turned eighteen, before reporting to the police that she was safe and did not wish to be bothered as she was an adult by then."

"And they just let her go?" Fix asked.

"She was legally an adult and had no record before that," Cyrus said. "Apparently they thought she was just a troubled teen and didn't bother further."

"God forbid they did their jobs," Cane hissed through his teeth.

"Well they did just five years later," Cyrus said. "By catching her partner in crime and putting him in jail. Interesting how not-aboveboard you were back then."

"Fuck you," Cane said. "I did my time."

"You sure it was enough?" Cyrus asked.

Fix spoke before Cane could snap again. "Anything else on her?"

"After Cane was put away, she laid low for a while, before emerging again…under a different last name," Cyrus said.

Cane froze.

"Layton," he said to himself, but Cyrus heard him.

"I don't want to know how you guessed that. ‘Sarah Layton, admitted to hospital on July 2nd, baby born at 4:55 but mother and unnamed daughter disappeared before being discharged. No sign of cursemark at birth,'" Cyrus recited. "Neither were seen or heard from again. No record of either of them anywhere. No jobs for Sarah, no school for Arianna. Not even the caster testing for her. There is still a search warrant active for Sarah under both known last names, but it's been nearly two decades."

"You're not actively searching anymore," Fix finished for him.

"Motherfucker!" Cane yelled, pushing off the counter, but he had nowhere to go. Nothing to take his anger out on.

"Arianna Layton is her daughter," Fix said.

"I should have guessed it. Apparently being a fucking psycho is genetic. The MO is the same. Dismantling my life piece by piece. It's what her fucking mother did before she tried to kill me and got me locked up," Cane growled.

"Where are you guys?" Cyrus asked. "We need to debrief about this. If Cane knows where a wanted criminal is…"

Cane hung up the phone.

"Cane!" Fix scolded.

"I killed Sarah," Cane said, stopping whatever else Fix was going to say. "After I got out of jail, I tracked her down and ended her for what she did to me. She's buried in an unmarked grave in a village just off the border with Arcstead. The last thing she said to me was ‘You can't take them from me.'"

"You killed her," Fix repeated, the words sounding heavy on his lips.

"Yes," Cane said. "It was kill or be killed and I'd already almost fucking died at her hands once. Wasn't gonna do it again."

"I didn't need to know that," Fix said, groaning as he threw his head back.

The phone buzzed between them as Cyrus called back. Cane braced himself for Fix's reaction to the news, laying his cards on the table.

Fix didn't reach for it.

"Okay…so the daughter grew up, she's got some serious magic, and is now getting revenge?" Fix said, seemingly trying to shake the shock of the information out of his system. Cane nodded, a wave of relief washing over him when he realized Fix was on his side, or at least the side that put Hart as priority.

"It's the only thing I can think of," Cane said.

"It's our best lead to help Hart." Fix nodded. "We have to find her."

"If she's anything like her mother, she'll be close by. What's the point of burning down my life for revenge and not being there to watch it?" Cane frowned as the words left his mouth. The prickly feeling of phantom eyes on him surfaced, and he snorted, hating himself for being so stupid. "She HAS been watching me."

"Sorry?"

Cane nodded. "I've felt for months like I was being followed. Watched. But I always thought… Loads of fuckers want me gone, so I didn't pay it too much attention. I fucking should have."

Fix nodded in agreement. "So how do we draw her out?"

"We provoke her," Cane said grimly. "By paying a visit to mommy dearest."

"You want to face off with her at her mother's grave?" Fix asked.

"What better place?"

"It would certainly evoke a reaction. And maybe not a good one. If she's as good a caster as she seems, she could do something much worse to you right there and then."

"I'll take the risk."

"For yourself, or for Hart?"

Cane smiled, flat and tight. "You wouldn't believe me anyway."

Fix sighed. It was the truth, after all. "Maybe we can reduce some of the risks, at least," he muttered.

He reached for his angrily buzzing phone and accepted the call.

"Hello?"

"What the fuck!" Cyrus exclaimed, sounding incredibly pissed off. "You want me to come down there and arrest both your asses?"

"We have a plan. Meet us outside the Mechaven farm district. Just on the border with the woods. Bring a squad but stay out of sight. Can you do that?" Cane fired off, typing a message into his own phone.

"Not without details," Cyrus said through his teeth.

"I'll hand you over the potential key to that list and a highly dangerous caster all at once," Cane said. "Good enough?"

Cyrus was silent for a few moments. "Fine."

He cut the call before Cane could say anything else, but it didn't matter. His phone pinged and he read the text Ares had sent back.

Ares: Anything you need, Boss.

He looked up from his phone to find Fix on his feet, fingers flying over his phone screen for a second before he looked up.

"Ash is coming with us," he said. "Black will come back and wait for Damir to arrive. Midas is on Wren duty. We're good to go."

Cane looked at him for a moment, trying to find that irritation he'd felt toward the cursebreaker team just hours ago.

It wasn't there. They had a shared goal now.

Find the person who'd dared to hurt Hart.

And destroy her.